PARIS, April 24. /TASS/. The voter turnout at the presidential election in France equaled 26.41% as of 12:00 am Paris time (1:00 pm Moscow time), which is almost 2 percentage points lower than during the 2017 election final at this time, the Interior Ministry reported on Sunday.
In 2012, 30.66% of voters had cast their votes in the runoff by this time. Consequently, this is the third presidential vote in the country with declining turnout, experts note. That said, the turnout in the second round of this vote was slightly higher than in the first round, specialists added. In the first round that took place on April 10, it amounted to 25.48% by this time.
In this vote final the French are to choose between the incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, who is running for a second term, and National Rally leader Marine Le Pen. This is their second runoff contest as in 2017 Macron won the elections with 66.1% of votes, while Le Pen came in second, earning 33.9%.